The Fun Years — Baby, It's Cold Inside

The Fun years are a duo, consisting of turntablist Isaac Sparks and baritone guitarist Ben Recht. Their music takes a few approaches to create an ambient space, some of which may spark memories of several similarly aligned artists, both recent and vintage. The scratchy, possibly old records used by Sparks will inevitably draw comparisons to Philip Jeck. The differences may be subtle, but what stands out is the fact that the Fun Years' music sounds relatively modern, not aged, as Jeck's music does. Some of the guitar passages throughout the album do echo Fripp and Eno, to the extent that the guitars are used to create a soft atmospheric backing. It seems as though anyone who uses a digital delay these days is designated with that comparison for some reason, yet Recht invokes "Frippertronics" without any of the stiff, unemotional detachment which often goes along with that tag.

The good thing about Baby, It's Cold Inside is the fact that the aforesaid influences are just a fractional part of these recordings. There's enough ingenuity put into the Fun Years' music to elevate it above mere mood music. The guitars are used to create a scene, with simple melodic lines subtly intruding upon the swirling backgrounds. If you listened to this album blind, you would know that there were turntables involved, as it's plainly evident. But you would also think there was, at a bare minimum, someone handling keyboard duties. That's because Spark's turntable work is good enough to trick you, a lot of the time. He uses records in such a way that there's only a few occasions where you can identify the music they are sourced from. He must spin the records at a snail's pace in order to get his sounds, yet the music sounds smooth, not warped.

What all of this adds up to is the fact that The Fun Years have created a lush, dense musical landscape, which belies their duo status. It's for the most part pleasant, but there are enough barbs to keep you hooked. Best of all, none of it sounds the least bit self-conscious.